Bill would expand Medicare access to weight loss tools

A Louisiana lawmaker is teaming up with senators from around the country on a bill that would give Medicare patients and their doctors access to new tools to combat obesity.

Nikki BuskeyStaff Writer

A Louisiana lawmaker is teaming up with senators from around the country on a bill that would give Medicare patients and their doctors access to new tools to combat obesity.The Treat and Reduce Obesity Act, introduced by U.S. Reps. Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, and Ron Kind, D-Wis., in the House and U.S. Sens. Tom Carper, D-Del., and Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska, in the Senate, aims to help lower health care costs and prevent chronic diseases by addressing America's growing obesity crisis. The bill would allow Medicare patients access to weight-loss counseling and new prescription drugs for chronic weight management, among other provisions.The bill was introduced after the American Medical Association officially recognized obesity as a disease Wednesday.According to the federal Centers for Disease Control, 65.8 percent of Louisiana adults are overweight and 31 percent are obese.Health-care costs related to obesity total nearly $200 billion each year. Nationwide, nearly 70 percent of Americans are overweight or obese, and 42 percent of Americans are projected to become obese by 2030. Obesity increases the risk for chronic diseases such as high blood pressure, heart disease and type 2 diabetes. “As a physician, I have personally seen the impact of obesity on people's health and spiraling health care costs. The medical consequences of obesity are clear but less often discussed is the fiscal consequence of America's growing waistline,” said Cassidy, whose congressional district includes northern Terrebonne and Lafourche parishes.Obesity is responsible for $61.8 billion in Medicare and Medicaid spending, Cassidy said. In 2010, the Congressional Budget Office said that nearly 20 percent of the increase in health care spending was caused by obesity. “Fortunately, we now have new technologies to help Americans fight obesity,” Cassidy added. “This legislation would help empower physicians to use all the tools in their arsenal to combat this epidemic,”The Treat and Reduce Obesity Act would:- Allow Medicare to cover additional obesity treatments such as prescription drugs for chronic weight management, which Medicaid already covers in more than 20 states. Weight-loss surgery is the only obesity treatment tool currently covered by Medicare.- Require the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to promote Medicare coverage of intensive behavioral counseling for obesity for seniors and their doctors.- Expand Medicare patients' access to intensive behavioral counseling by allowing additional providers to offer the service.“Seven in 10 adults struggle with obesity and being overweight, and more than a third of children are overweight or obese. These facts demand that we do more to combat the obesity epidemic,” Carper said. “Not only are these Americans more vulnerable to chronic diseases like diabetes, heart disease, disability and stroke, but as a country we're spending almost $200 billion a year to treat obesity and its related conditions. If we continue to stand idly by while more and more people become overweight and obese, for the first time in our country's history our children will live shorter lives than we adults do.”

Staff Writer Nikki Buskey can be reached at 448-7636 or nicole.buskey@houmatoday.com.

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